Scientist
by Alchemechanist
Summary: The M-rated version of the end of chapter 14 in Half the Perfect World. Artemis learns what it's like to love and be loved in return.


**An apology for not publishing a new chapter. It's been a rough beginning to the year. I'm not going to give excuses this time.**

**My first time ever writing smut. I'd appreciate reviews, but of course you are not in any way required to press that button.**

**Thanks to Kit Heart for betaing.

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Her body was by no means perfect, but it was his.

She had acted like there was all the time in the world when they had walked in the door. He had watched her put on a kettle of hot water under the intent of making tea of some sort, slowly shedding her winter outerwear as the liquid had begun to heat. A hunger had started in his body the moment they had stepped off the subway on the way home, a slow, gnawing sense in him that slowly ate at the walls of his stomach and then escaped to the rest of his internal organs, a burning to shed his skin and leap into territory he had never been in before. Sexuality, he had realized whilst walking home and feeling the slow burn through his blood, was a much deeper and more intimate dimension than he had ever realized.

And so he had stood watching her, standing in her day clothes in the night-lit kitchen, his ever-alert eyes tracing the outline of her body, committing it to memory through the same memorization that had taught him the Periodic Table and every language he spoke. He knew she felt him watching her, but she kept her back to him, humming quietly and off tune.

Steam curled around the base of the kettle, licks of flame from the old gas burner touching the chipped red paint for only a moment before flitting away. He kept his eye on the blue flecks of fire as he moved slowly toward her, the soft wood of the floor creaking slightly underneath his feet. She turned as he drew close, her eyes searching his wordlessly.

They met with a gentle kiss, one of her hands reaching slowly up to cup his cheek. "Look at you," she whispered against his lips. "Seventeen years old and engaging in intimate activities."

He moved from her lips to her neck. "I was never one for following tradition verbatim."

There was a whine as the water in the kettle began to boil. He started; tea was the farthest thing from his mind, and she seemed to sense this, reaching out to the stove and turning off the burner. The whine slowly settled to nothing, a pitiful sound echoing through the kitchen as it cooled, but they were not there to hear it.

It was only when he had slipped his shirt over his head that he realized how hard he was breathing. She touched a hand to his chest as if to calm his heart some, but the gesture accomplished only the opposite effect. A monster of sorts raged through his various veins and arteries, throbbing through him whenever he felt her lips brush his. Despite the crashing of waves in his mind, the room was silent except for their breathing, their slow, building movements making no sound.

He felt hyperaware of everything; the heat escalating in his stomach and hers, the whisper of the sheets as she pulled him down, her legs curling around his, her flushed face drawing lingering caresses on his. He was pleasantly surprised realize that he could feel her heartbeat against his chest.

It was then that he realized what he was doing, and how incredibly amorous he was, alone with her, a hand slipping up her neck and curling around her jaw. His thumb brushed her carotid artery, burning, pulsing with the blood that rushed through her body.

"You can kill a man by cutting him once here."

She arched into him as he said this, her fingernails sketching his spine and shoulder blades, her spine curling up to fit the shape of his other hand. He replaced the hand on her neck with his nose, drawing up her neck like a practiced painter, his lips lingering on her jaw, and below her ear as they traveled gently, easily over her face, pausing on her eyelids and cheeks.

Her hands retracted from his back and she used them to pull her shirt over her head, her hair making a mussed halo around her cheekbones. Nervously, he dipped down, fingertips following the lines made by collarbones and ribs, exploring her stomach with hands that had only experienced this part of a woman's body through medical textbooks late at night, loitering over places where, deep underneath, he knew precious, warm things lay protect by muscle. She watched him, placing her weight on her elbows, fascinated by his gentle musings as he slowly discovered her, learning her blemishes, remembering scars that were no longer there. The muscles in her stomach jumped erratically when he passed to low, accompanied with a small gasp; he looked up, searching her expression, asking permission of her before he acted.

She nodded once, and he reached up to touch the base of the wire that supported her breasts, following the base until he reached the back, his fingers learning the mechanism before unhooking the clasp, freeing her upper body. He bit his lip a little as she slid the straps away from her arms, tossing the bra off of the bed, where it hit the floor with a soft sigh. She realized his problem when she looked back, curious about his wide eyes trained on the pillow her head rested on.

"Dear God," he breathed, the arms he supported himself with trembling. "I want to simply _ravage _you."

She chuckled lowly in return, a sound that resonated deep in her chest.

Hesitantly, he leaned toward her, his mouth traveling from the dip in her collarbones to the valley between her breasts. She stretched, her ribs expanding under his touch and, intrigued, he let his hands ghost over her nipples, watching, with the eye of a scientist, the changes that came along with her arousal.

He kissed her then, speaking without words. With the movement of his lips he weaved a tale of trust and conviction, she returning with a similar story of heat and passion. Hands gently tugged as the waistband of his jeans, and he realized that he could no longer tell whose breathing was whose.

She stripped the material away from his legs, which tensed slightly in reaction to their freedom. In return, she slipped away from her corduroys, the slight stubble on her calves making his skin jump.

She pulled him back down by the back of his neck, sighing sweetly as he drew a hand up her leg, hitching one knee over his hip as he halved her body with his lips, from her chin to the dip of her stomach between her hipbones. Her fingers toyed with his hair, listening carefully as he murmured the names of the things beneath her skin, his hands pressing gently at her lower abdomen.

"Abdominopelvic cavity." His voice was only a murmur. He glanced up at her face, noting the heaving of her breasts toward the ceiling, the beads of sweat blessing her face, the tense struggle between her fingers and his tangled tresses. "Ovary. Fallopian tube. Uterus, subunits: myometrium, endometrium."

She pulled on his hair, drawing his attention back to her. "Get back up here," she whispered, but there was a trace of dark amusement in her voice. "Only you could make this scientific."

He pressed his lips to her jaw, earning an out-of-place affectionate squeeze from her arms, pulling him close. His body was between her legs; it was impossible not to feel the heat between them, and he writhed a bit in her arms.

A sort of haze settled over his mind. It was a presence he was not at all used to, and he found himself slightly shocked to realize that their undergarments were gone, and that her legs were coiled tightly around his waist, her teeth sinking gently into his neck, his nails burrowed into the sheets beneath her. Hands traced outlines of bones and flexing muscle, and then he raised and lowered his hips and found himself inside of her.

Any movement stopped except for their breathing. Their eyes locked; a monumental moment between them. Her hands moved to his face, his to her shoulders, his elbows supporting his weight, flames coiling through his bloodstream and nervous system, ripping through the muscles in his back that trembled ever so slightly. Her hands moved from his face to his shoulder blades, staying his shaking and pulling him deeper toward her, and they commenced.

All the colors in the room melted together like a damaged oil painting, sweat mixing, melted snow slipping down the frosted windows, legs and arms twining together. He found it difficult to breath; a fact that did not terrify him, as it should have. He was too concerned with the way her arms felt wrapped around his back, pulling him somehow closer to her, making her heaving chest press flush with his. Her muscles convulsed against his body, and his fingers followed the lines they made, stopping to grab whatever part of her body was beneath his hands whenever a shudder would wrack through him.

She came a moment before him, and her hips arched up to him, cutting off sound and emotion. All thinking — all rationalizing, all subconscious thought, all mental activity — shut off, and for the first moment of his life he just felt. He felt her around him, and he felt her relax slowly against his body, and he felt absolutely, completely content.

When he returned to a complete state of mind he was laying on his stomach, his fingers twined gently with hers. She was staring at him as if nothing else in the world was more interesting, and, after a moment, he supposed that maybe nothing was.

In the aftermath of his orgasm, he was left surprisingly achy and tired, but there was a newer, carnal sense of satisfaction that he concluded came from the millions of evolutionary years as beasts. He took a moment to regain his bearings before completely focusing on her, his fingers clenching tranquilly on her hand.

"You look confused," she whispered to him, as if actually speaking would shatter the peacefulness of the moment.

"Neuromuscular euphoria," he replied, shivering slightly as the sweat on his body began to dry, cold in the night air. He pulled himself closer to him, and she wrapped him in her arms, letting him bury his face in her shoulder. "It's much more intense than I ever could have dreamed."

A small laugh from her. "Which I suppose is a good thing. Though now you just seem sleepy."

"Hn," he groaned softly into her skin, his eyes closing on her neck. "You may blame it on the neurohormones oxytocin and prolactin, if you wish."

"You're ridiculous."

"I'll take that," he yawned, wrapping his cold toes around hers, for which he earned a small squeak of protest. "Just as long as I can always be ridiculous with you."

She sighed, accepting his cold feet, and kissed the back of his neck.

"Always."


End file.
